BP NS OFFSHORE DRILLING: Boat tour of Lunenburg

BP NS OFFSHORE DRILLING: Boat tour of Lunenburg

Postby Oscar » Tue Mar 20, 2018 10:16 am

PHOTO OP: Boat tour of Lunenburg will examine potential impacts of offshore drilling

[ https://canadians.org/media/photo-op-bo ... e-drilling ]

Media Advisory / Photo Op March 19, 2018

What: The Council of Canadians is hosting a boat tour of the Lunenburg Harbour to highlight the potential impacts offshore drilling may have on fisheries, local economies, and communities. BP was recently granted approval to conduct exploratory offshore drilling in Nova Scotia as early as this spring. The Council is also organizing a series of public town halls taking place in Halifax and on the south shore from March 20-22. [ https://canadians.org/NS-offshore-tour ]

When: 11 a.m., Thursday, March 22, 2018.

Where: Inshore Fishermen’s Wharf, Bluenose Drive, Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. Media are invited to park at the museum and walk down Bluenose Drive to the first wharf on the right side. (Map) [ https://www.google.ca/maps/place/Fisher ... 64.3124241 ]

Who: Antonia Juhasz, author of Black Tide: The Devastating Impact of the Gulf Oil Spill, will be available for comment on BP’s new project and its corporate history of negligence leading to the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010, as well as the current push to keep offshore drilling out of the U.S.’s Atlantic waters for fear of impacting the multi-billion dollar fishery.

Colin Sproul, fifth generation fisherman and Bay of Fundy Inshore Fishermen’s Association board director, will be available for comment on the impact that an offshore spill would have on fisheries and fishing communities across Nova Scotia.

Peter Puxley, economist, former CBC journalist, and a policy researcher will be available to comment on the influence that the oil and gas industry has had on energy regulation in Canada, with specific attention on the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board and Environment and Climate Change Canada, both of which have regulatory duties pertaining to BP’s project.

Members of the Council of Canadians and the Campaign to Protect Offshore Nova Scotia will be available for comment about the speaking tour, and the broader effort to stop offshore drilling in Nova Scotia. -30-

Contact:

Robin Tress, Council of Canadians, 902-223-8526
Dylan Penner, Council of Canadians, 613-795-8685
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Re: BP NS OFFSHORE DRILLING: Boat tour of Lunenburg

Postby Oscar » Wed Mar 21, 2018 9:14 pm

Day 1 of tour highlights risks of offshore drilling, in Halifax

[ https://canadians.org/blog/day-1-tour-h ... ng-halifax ]

March 21, 2018 - 10:36 am

We kicked off our coastal tour yesterday in Halifax with two meaningful meetings and a successful town hall. [ https://canadians.org/NS-offshore-tour ]

The tour, which travels today to Shelburne and tomorrow to Lunenburg is featuring voices on the risks of offshore drilling in the wake of the federal government's recent approval of BP to drill up to seven wells [ http://www.ceaa-acee.gc.ca/050/document ... ent=121523 ], some of which are ultra deepwater wells, off the coast of Nova Scotia. In Halifax, the tour featured Antonia Juhasz, a leading energy analyst, investigative journalist and author of Black Tide: the Devastating Impact of the Gulf Oil Spill, Colin Sproul, a fifth generation lobster fisherman and serves on the board of the Bay of Fundy Inshore Fishermen’s Association and Michelle Paul, a Mi’kmaq activist and treaty rights holder involved with Idle No More, the Treaty Truckhouse and Alton Gas resistance.

The evening townhall, with around 100 in attendance, was moderated by Atlantic regional organizer Angela Giles and Marion Moore of the Council of Canadians South Shore chapter and the Campaign to Protect Offshore Nova Scotia (CPONS).

After a welcome from Elder Billy Lewis recognizing the event was on unceded ancestral territory of the Mi’kmaq nation, Antonia began with a silent presentation of photos from the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill in the gulf and other spills including the recent Sanchi tanker spill. She explained that an oil spill doesn't need to be catastrophic to be a catastrophe for the people that it impacts. Many smaller oil spills go relatively unnoticed by the national or global population but are felt deeply by coastal communities for decades.

Antonia described her research in the wake of the BP Gulf Coast spill disaster including interviewing workers who were on Deepwater Horizon rig and families of workers who were killed in the explosion, members of the fishing and broader gulf community as well as people in government, industry and advocacy organizations. She outlined how BP discovered the spill, why it took 3 months before the flow of oil was stopped and the long lasting impacts the oil, and dispersants used to clean it up had on the surrounding water and communities.

She described deepwater drilling as presenting heightened risks which contributed to the challenges in preventing and addressing the Gulf Coast spill. BP’s proposal off the coast of Nova Scotia is up to twice the depth of the Macondo well involved in the Gulf Coast spill.

Someone asked if drilling could be done safely on the Scotian Shelf and she said that industry could take measures to do things safer, cleaner, but offshore deepwater drilling will never be safe or clean or risk-free.

Michelle linked several Mi'kmaq struggles to protect the water together. She talked about the Indian Act governments not representing the grassroots Mi'kmaq people, and how the grassroots need to work together to defend the treaties.

Colin talked about how the fisheries are the lifeblood of Nova Scotia's economy and culture, and a devastating spill would forever alter our ability to participate in the fisheries markets. Markets move on, and damage to our seafood's reputation would be immutable.

Colin also shared his dismay that the nearest capping stack, a device that is used to temporarily shut in a deepwater well, would be in Norway (meaning up to two weeks to travel to N.S.). He also talked about the unique nature of Atlantic waters around the Scotia shelf, including winter conditions that see 100 foot sea states, and how this would dramatically affect clean up efforts.

There was a lively discussion that followed.

Earlier in the day several of us joined Antonia and Colin in engaging meetings with the Tourism Industry Association of Nova Scotia [ http://www.tians.org/ ], and a number of members of the Offshore Alliance, a growing association of over twenty Nova Scotia environmental, fisheries and citizens’ organizations, formed to press the Trudeau government to make good on its promise “to make environmental assessment credible again.”

For more information, read Antonia’s oped featured in the Chronicle Herald [ http://thechronicleherald.ca/opinion/15 ... for-canada ]. There have also been several recent news articles including: opponents of ultra-deep BP well of N.S. coast speaking at SMU in the Chronicle Herald [ http://thechronicleherald.ca/novascotia ... ing-at-smu ], Speaking tour exploring the topic: Nova Scotia offshore drilling, worth the risk? [ https://www.thevanguard.ca/news/regiona ... sk-195027/ ] Yarmouth County Vanguard, Halifax Speakers to outline drilling concerns [ http://www.trurodaily.com/news/halifax- ... ns-194675/ ], Truro Daily News.


Robin Tress's blog
Council of Canadians' Atlantic Regional Organizing Assistant
[ https://canadians.org/blogs/robin-tress ]
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Re: BP NS OFFSHORE DRILLING: Boat tour of Lunenburg

Postby Oscar » Wed Mar 28, 2018 9:39 am

Reflections on NS Offshore Drilling: Worth the Risk? tour last week

[ https://canadians.org/blog/reflections- ... -last-week ]

March 27, 2018 - 5:25 pm

Last week was an intense whirlwind of travelling through snowstorms on Nova Scotia’s beautiful South Shore to attend meetings and public events, along the way taking in an overwhelming amount of knowledge and information about what the offshore oil industry could mean for our province, with a focus on what is at risk.

Antonia Juhasz joined us from San Francisco to share what she uncovered about big oil and particularly BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. From her investigative journalists’ perspective, she had worked to uncover details through personal interviews of people who survived the disaster, through intense research of the company’s history, and through connections made at an academic level to others with knowledge of legislation, etc. Her understanding of this company and the world of oil and gas and how it operates was invaluable.

Colin Sproul, as a 5th generation fisherman and representative of the Bay of Fundy Inshore Fishermen's Association, often framed his participation as arguing for an industry (fisheries) as opposed to arguing against one (offshore oil and gas). His knowledge and understanding of the fishery and protected areas goes beyond the Bay of Fundy and with some support from John Davis, a former fisherman and chair of the Clean Ocean Action Committee (COAC, a fishermen’s association), had an abundance of knowledge on the Scotian shelf, George’s Bank, spawning ground at the Roseway Basin – all of which would be covered in oil if a catastrophic spill were to occur.

(PHOTOL Colin Sproul addresses the crowd in Halifax while Antonia and Michelle look on.)

The third speaker was different for Halifax – Michelle Paul, a Mi’kmaw water protector and treaty rights holder – than the events in Shelburne and Lunenburg. While we were thrilled to have Peter Puxley speak at the latter two events (he comes to us as a member of the Campaign to Protect Offshore NS, but also has a background in biology and climate science), Indigenous participation was a focus of our attention in the lead-up to the events. We had amazing grassroots leaders welcome us to unceded ancestral territory of the Mi’kmaw Nation, and hope that engagement around offshore protection will continue to strengthen. Michelle’s words in K’jipuktuk (Halifax) were an inspiration – check it out here at the 41:48 mark. [ https://www.facebook.com/robin.tress/vi ... =2&theater ]

Meetings with municipal leaders stuck out to me. Elected representatives at a municipal level see their job as gathering information of issues that will impact their communities so that they can present an unbiased opinion. This is interesting to me because of the recent example Antonia shared that just across the border, in fact in 13 US Eastern Seaboard states, the municipal governments were very involved in public opposition to offshore that resulted in Attorneys General writing a letter to the Trump leadership outlining reasons for opposition to the industry.

(PHOOTO:A snowstorm in Lunenburg made for a beautiful backdrop but messy roads for the tour stop there. (pictured l-r: Robin Tress, Antonia Juhasz, Colin Sproul, Angela Giles) )

We organized this tour in part because the whole process for approval of the offshore leases, environmental assessments, and industry overall has felt very concentrated in terms of participation in decision-making. The people of Nova Scotia, from what we saw, have not been made aware of the risks of the industry. Given the approval structures currently in place don’t prioritize public engagement and enable corporate or industry control of the messages being heard by the general public, this is not surprising; I hope this tour has inspired many more to fight for our voices to be heard in what could have an even bigger impact on us than fracking.

(PHOTO: Organizing committee for the tour: (l-r) Marilyn Keddy, Marion Moore, Robin Tress, Angela Giles. Missing: Andrea Harden-Donahue)

Supporting the South Shore chapter initiative, the Campaign to Protect Offshore Nova Scotia (CPONS), is what brought us to this point. CPONS has been working on this file for the past couple of years – raising awareness about the industry and concerns, sorting out strategy and legislation and decision-makers, participating in other coalitions like the recently-formed Offshore Alliance (focused on regulatory changes at a federal level) and another about FORRI (Frontier and Offshore Regulatory Review Initiative, a project of Natural Resources Canada). Shout out to CPONS and the South Shore chapter for all of their amazing work! And in particular, Marion Moore and Marilyn Keddy who were so critical to organizing this successful tour. <3

For more information,

• read Robin's blog from Day 1 of the tour here: [ https://canadians.org/blog/day-1-tour-h ... ng-halifax ]

• check out twitter #ProtectOffshoreNS here: [ https://twitter.com/hashtag/protectoffshorens ]

• watch the livestream of the Lunenburg event here: [ https://www.facebook.com/robin.tress/vi ... =2&theater ] - stream interrupted?????


Angela Giles's blog
Council of Canadians' Atlantic regional organizer
[ https://canadians.org/blogs/angela-giles ]
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